FROM METAPHOR TO METHOD: NONLINEAR SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT

For several decades, scholars have called for “open” or “living systems” approaches to the study of complex organizations. These approaches were especially characterized by the presence of various nonlinear dynamics. Unfortunately, the formal mathematics required to capture these dynamics did not become widely available until the recent mass computing revolution. Meanwhile, these realms of mathematics, known variously as “catastrophes,” “chaos,” and more recently as “complexity,” have caught hold in the physical, biological, and cognitive sciences. This article contends that it is now time for these recent advances in the sciences of nonlinearity to emerge full scale in the social realm as well. However, thus far, this movement is much more metaphorical than it is methodological. Thus, a review of some policy and management applications is undertaken. Of particular interest are those where the uses of phase plane analysis and genetic algorithms portend significant practical import.